Tai Chi (sometimes spelled Taiji) is a martial art. But I don't think this is a very good answer to the question, because I think it gives a misleading impression to the person who's asking. I would infer said person would be asking to find it if it's something they might want to try. Saying it's a martial art suggests classes are similar to other martial arts like Karate or Judo. But your average Tai Chi class isn't like that; it's not about the fighting. I think of Tai Chi as the least "martial" of the martial arts.
So my simple answer is that Tai Chi is:
- A movement methodology
- To cultivate Chi in the body
- Coordinating Body, Breath, and Mind
Chi (also spelled qi or ki) is usually translated as "energy", but it's usually more specifically associated with the life force.
Chinese medicine talks about chi flowing through the body along
"meridians".
Western medicine talks about a muscular system that controls body movements;
a cardiovascular system that sends oxygen (etc.) throughout the body;
a nervous system that sends electrical signals that communicate between
the brain and the body; etc.
I think of Chi as being a way of talking about all those "systems" in the aggregate,
as a more cohesive whole.
As mentioned earlier in the 'what is' FAQ, Tai Chi is considered a martial art, but a typical class doesn't usually focus on fighting, so doesn't look like what you probably think of when you think of a martial arts class. Instead, you might think it looks more like a Yoga class: people moving slowly into various defined "postures". In Tai Chi, the postures are usually organized into sequences called "forms".
Please bear in mind that every Tai Chi class is going to be a bit different. This is in part because there are several different styles of Tai Chi (the style I've studied is Yang style). But even within a particular style, each Tai Chi instructor is going to have their own personal style of teaching. so what I say here will necessarily be a generalization based on my own observations.
Fun Fact: The correct verb for when you do Tai Chi is "play". You play Tai Chi forms. You are a Tai Chi player. I just love the idea that, as adults, we go to Tai Chi class to play.
One answer I've heard: "You can't kill someone with Yoga." This is, of course, a flippant response, relating to Tai Chi being a martial art whereas Yoga is not.
But more seriously, as mentioned in the earlier FAQ about classes, Tai Chi and Yoga have some similarity in that both involve slow movements into specific "postures". Both are also about coordinating Body, Breath, and Mind into a sort of moving meditation.
Some differences I see include:
- Yoga includes postures that involve sitting or laying on the floor, and postures that involve inversion (like head stands). Tai Chi is typically done standing. One of the basic principles of Tai Chi is to keep your head erect. (This was one of the reasons I prefer Tai Chi over Yoga. I have a problem with positional vertigo.)
- Yoga tends to focus on getting into a posture, and then holding it, so it's kind of about stillness. Tai Chi is more about the movement, flowing from one posture to the next. That's another basic principle of Tai Chi: continuous and flowing movements. That doesn't mean it's about speed, though, or the quantity of postures you go through. It's about the journey.
Tai Chi and Qigong (sometimes spelled Chi Gung or Chi Kung) are closely related and often included together in classes (even when it's not stated explictly). The "Chi" in "Tai Chi" is the same as in "Qi" in "Qigong". The "Gong" in "Qigong" is the same as the "Kung" in "Kung Fu", and means "study" or "discipline". So Qigong is Energy Study.
I could describe Qigong the same way as I did Tai Chi: it's a movement methodology to cultivate Chi in the body by coordinating Body, Breath, and Mind. So what's the difference? One thing I've been told is that Tai Chi has more "mind". But what does that mean?
I've described Qigong as more "movement for movement's sake." It's exercise, focused on promoting health and well-being, much like Yoga. It's about maintaining the chi in your body. Tai Chi, on the other hand, is about moving chi through your body with intention.
That is, Qigong is about movement; Tai Chi is about moving effectively. We might also pick apart the word "cultivate" to help explain the difference; Qigong is growing chi in the body; Tai Chi is about harvesting it, or using it for a purpose. What is that purpose? Well, that's where the martial arts part usually comes in. The postures of Tai Chi all have martial applications. But the principles of Tai Chi could be applied to almost anything, which helps explain the "Tai Chi is a way of life" answer to the "What is Tai Chi?" question.
Another thing I've heard as a difference is that you breathe differently
in Qigong compared to Tai Chi, but I believe that relates to the concepts of Yin and Yang,
so I'll talk about it in the separate FAQ about Yin and Yang.
You probably have some awareness of this symbol, usually called the
Yin-Yang symbol. And you probably also have some awareness of
the concepts of Yin amd Yang: opposite qualities that
balance each other, like up and down, male and female, heaven and earth.
(There's a very nice TED-Ed
video about it on YouTube.)
This symbol is also commonly accepted as the symbol for Tai Chi and Qigong, because the principles of Yin and Yang are integral to their practice. For example, when thinking about Tai Chi in a martial-arts way, you think about Yield and Overcome, which is a yin-yang pair. Inhale and Exhale are another such pair; you use the principles of Yin and Yang to coordinate your breath with your movements.
As mentioned above in the Q about Qigong vs. Tai Chi, someone told me that you breathe the opposite way in Qigong compared to Tai Chi. I didn't understand it at first, because the way you breathe in Tai Chi makes so much sense to me. In general, as mentioned earlier, Tai Chi is about movement, so each posture has a beginning (a preparation or setup) and an ending (an action); i.e., a Yin part and a Yang part. In general, in Tai Chi, you inhale on the Yin and exhale on the Yang. This makes sense to me because usually when you inhale you're bringing energy in to you, preparing to use it; when you exhale you're sending it outward, somewhere else (in martial arts, you use it to attack your opponent).
But what I was being told was that in Qigong, you normally inhale on the Yang and exhale on the Yin. This eventually started to make sense to me as I was doing a Qigong exercise called "Embracing the Moon". In it, you inhale as you open your arms like you're holding a big ball in front of you (sometimes referred to as "holding the sun"), then exhale as you move your arms like you're turning the ball so one hand's on top and the other's on the bottom (sometimes referred to as "holding the moon"). So you expand as you hold the sun, and relax as you hold the moon--Yang and Yin. So yes, I can see where you do inhale on the Yang and exhale on the Yin in Qigong. That seems to be because Qigong has a different purpose--it's not martial. The goal of Qigong is to gather Chi in your own body; in Tai Chi the goal is to send it at your opponent. So you think about the movements differently. And as was said in the Youtube video I mentioned earlier in this Q, Yin and Yang are not absolute -- the same thing can be Yin sometimes and Yang sometimes depending on context.
So, I was understanding where the "breathe different in Qigong" came from, but as I thought about it more, I started to wonder, is it really? It occurred to me that the "Embracing the moon" Qigong exercise was very similar to the "Holding the ball" posture in Tai Chi. If you play "Holding the ball" at the same pace as "Embracing the moon", the preparation/setup (Yin part) is opening your arms, where you inhale; and the action (Yang part) is moving them into the "holding the ball" position, where you exhale. So you're actually breathing the same as "Embracing the moon"; it's what part you think of as Yin and Yang that changed.
I had to mention "pace" there, when comparing "Holding the ball"
with "Embracing the moon".
It can be instructive to play around with pacing when doing Tai Chi
because it can help you understand the Yin and the Yang of the movements.
Let's look at "Part the wild horse's mane" as an example.
This posture uses "Hold the ball" as its setup, or Yin part;
and the action, or Yang part, is to step forward while separating the hands
("parting the mane").
This is commonly done with the breath as I described earlier for Tai Chi--
inhale on the Yin (holding the ball) and exhale on the Yang (parting the mane),
so it takes one full breath to do the posture.
But when we slow the pace down, as we did with "Embracing the Moon", we can see
that "Holding the ball" has Yin and Yang within it. Similarly, we can find
Yin and Yang in the "parting the mane" part of the posture as well: the setup (Yin) is
positioning the foot forward, and the action (Yang) is shifting the weight and
separating the hands. At this pace the posture could be done with 2 full breaths.
We can take this further if we want to repeat the posture on the other side, because the action of changing sides can be slowed down similarly, because you have to reposition your foot (Yin) and then shift your weight and change your hands (Yang) to get into "holding the ball" on the opposite side. You can slow this down even more, looking at just the Yin part, and see that you need to shift your weight back off the foot (Yin) before you can reposition it (Yang). And similarly, for the Yang part you need to shift your weight to the front foot (Yin) before you can move your back foot in order to get into the "holding the ball" posture (Yang).
Maybe it's just my math background, but
I find this recursion fascinating. It makes me think of fractals.
My experience has been that, in general, when people use the "Tai Chi Chuan", they tend to be talking about it more as a martial art; and when they use "Tai Chi" they're talking about it as a more general sort of exercise. I've been told that "Tai Chi Chuan" means "Grand Ultimate Fist" and that "chuan" means "fist" so using "Tai Chi Chuan" for the more martial aspect makes sense. My headcanon then leads me to figure that "Tai Chi" by itself must mean "Grand Ultimate"... And we know what they "chi" is, so what does "tai" mean? I'm not sure, but I think it's not unreasonable that whatever the "Grand Ultimate" is, it would involve Chi. And that it's another reason why "Tai Chi is a way of life" can be an answer to the "What is Tai Chi?" question.
